The draft has come and gone, and thanks to a late night in the office I got to follow it live a little bit. I'm not going to write up the whole thing, because Deanna has already done an excellent job of that. Instead, let's take a quick look at where the guys I've written about landed:
Hisayoshi Chono: Backed off his demand to be selected by the Giants at the last minute; was subsequently selected by the Chiba Lotte Marines. We'll see if he signs.
Yi-Jie Hsiao: Selected by Hanshin with their first round pick. Hsiao was actually Hanshin's third "first" choice, but they lost out on their first two.
Krissada Shirakura: Not selected. It's on to the industrial leagues, or perhaps a pro league outside of Japan for Shirakura.
Son-Hyon Shin: Taken by Hiroshima in the fourth round.
Rafael Fernandez: As expected, snagged by Yakult with an instructional player pick.
Yoshinori Yamarin: Not selected, even as an instructional player. Will he sign a minor league deal with the Braves?
Hayato Doue: Drafted with Softbank's final instructional round pick.
Junichi Tazawa: NPB teams respected his wishes not to be drafted. I thought someone might take a flier on him with a late-round pick, but it didn't happen.
One unfortunate result of the draft is that the excellent Draft de Anbo site is down. The site slowed down to a crawl during the draft, so I guess they violated their host's traffic policies. The site is still down, but I hope to see it back soon.
